AT NIGHT
Come, draw more near! Clasp hands with me!
Ah close, and closer still!
The night spreads to infinity!
And through my heart a sudden chill,
—I pray loose not your loving hold!—
A fear, a loneliness untold
Smites sharply, till mine eyes o’erfill!
Nor have I strength nor stress of will
To set my spirit free.
The cold, the darkness, and the dread
Immensity of space,
The great, wan moon, whose ghostly face
For ages has been dead,
The weird lights wheeling overhead,
The unknown worlds that onward roll,
In endless wanderings ever led,
That find no goal,
The spectral mists that overspread
With pallid light the lesser stars,
The lurid glow that glimmers red
Across the front of Mars,
—O dearest heart, when all is said,
I am afraid! and from the whole
Wide waste of worlds I hide my sight,
And from the boundless night!
The ancient mystery of the skies,
Their silent depths from pole to pole,
The void, the vastness terrifies!
—O, let me rather search your eyes,
And with your sweet, warm touch disperse
This terror of the universe
That strikes into my soul!